The parrots, numbering in the hundreds, have learned not to squawk. They swoop down, nibble off the stalks and fly back to the trees, where they nod off for hours, sometimes even falling to their deaths.

“Once they have their fill, they sit on trees and sleep there for hours. Some of them can be seen circling or staggering before falling from the trees due to overdose of opium,” Kishore Kumar Dhaker, a poppy farmer in western India, told Odisha360.com.

No one knows why these wild parrots are so high on opium, but the problem started in 2015 at poppy fields near the city of Chittorgarh.

This opioid crisis is for the birds in more ways than one. Besides problems parrots face with monkeys on their back, local farmers are also suffering.

The Indian government requires farmers to provide a pre-agreed quantity of opium annually for medicinal use, and the drug-addled parrots are cutting into their earnings, according to Sobharam Rathod, an opium farmer from Neemuch. He estimated parrots are stealing around 10 percent of his crop, according to the Mirror.

Buzz60 notes in the video above that farmers have tried everything from firecrackers to beating tin drums and hurling stones, but nothing keeps these parrots from their fix.